Chapter 432: Fight for Your Destiny!
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
"It would depend on all of you," said Brahmara.
Ye Yin's expression was somber, with the little flicker of light remaining in his soulless eyes.
He had witnessed everything in the past three days. Xue Lai clan and Xi Feng tribe suffered the greatest loss as they lost at least half of their men being at the frontmost line. It was also known as the highest amount of casualty in the record of history in the past few years.
Non-combat units in the fleet also suffered a considerable amount of damage due to limited energy supply. These ships were not assigned a combative role in the evacuation, so they were only given the energy amount for basic flights. In their plan, most of the batteries had been given to the mechs of frontline. They had to, or the frontmost defense line would never last beyond three days. The only saving grace was, most of the goals of the evacuation had been achieved this time, though with a great cost.
The clouds of Crustalades had slowly faded away, as the giant ones had probably been wiped out. Their minions were still everything nevertheless. Ye Yin had a much important mission to carry out thus they decided to treat these pests with ignorance.
There was one last obstacle in their course.
The mollusc bristleworm, 6000 of them or so.
These bristleworms had gathered up and formed into a gigantic conglomeration, which wriggled like a dragon of darkness as it stood in the way of the fleet.
Ye Yin's eyes were dimmed as he looked upon the giant monstrosity. How many people would he have to lose in order to get home? How many people could survive in this ever-going fight? It took a few moments of silence for him to muster that inner voice of his, his eyes sharpened, "Go as planned. Attack!" shouted the ultimate order.
The mechs retreated and the fleet reformed as the ships accelerated.
The ships hovered across the pathway at the front.
These ships were empty and were moving under pre-programmed piloting.
The ships sped up dramatically.
Mach 8
Mach 10
Mach 12!
The empty ships were leading their own parade as they hurriedly charged towards the wriggling ugly monster.
These vessels had been modified with additional engines to give him stronger thrust, thus the ability to hit Mach 12 effortlessly.
It was not easy to defeat the conglomerated worms. Ye Yin and the rest had cracked their head thinking up a plan. The conglomeration was imaginably massive. One bristleworm would be about 40 meters in length, 6 to 7 meters in breadth. Now, multiply the figures by 6000 to get the estimated size of the monstrosity. It was simply horribly giant that mechs felt like the ants before the anteater. It would be impossible to slash through the monster with insufficient momentum. Things would only work if the fleet drilled its way through.
All the ships were travelling at maximum speed. Ye Chong was a little astonished by the grand view as he saw the distance decreasing between the fleet of empty ships and the monster.
The bristleworms seemed to have noticed the incoming fleet as the surface of the monster was quivering. The monster turned restless as it began thrashing.
The 50 empty ships then sank into the body of the monster.
Boom!
The monster had been pierced at its weak spot, as it began squirming in immense pain.
The bristleworms leaked out of the conglomeration upon contact, as they began scurrying around in panic. The empty ships continued "drilling", to the deepest of the monster.
And at the next moment, the monster collapsed, as a wave of bristleworms engulfed the pathway.
The bristleworms were writhing everywhere frantically, where clouds of green smoke escaped from their bodies and cloaked the entire place.
The fleet could only see the green sea ahead while making out the shape of those little squirmy silhouettes.
"A-all units ahead!" Ye Yin's calm voice cracked a little, as he launched the final gambit of entire fleet. His mech had first initiated the move, as it travelled ahead at full speed.
No doubt it was a final gambit for them, as the release of those green gases had an effect that promoted disintegration of metals. The metal would gradually lose its particle cohesion upon contact, resulting a highly brittle structure that eventually would break down on its own due to the overwhelming artificial air pressure controlled inside the ship. In simpler terms, Brahmara had expected the effect to go on full swing in a duration of about 3 days, that would mean they would be a goner if they did not arrive at He Yue galaxy within the period.
It was just natural to die without the protection of any spaceship or mech.
But, that was not all. According to calculation, they would need 4 days to fully walk through the entire pathway and they had just hit the middle. Halving that and they still needed 2 more days to completely exit the place, given that nothing happened that is. Nonetheless, the green worms were still there, at worst case scenario Ye Yin and the army must finish the battle in less than a day!
Time was no longer money, rather it was solely life to them at the moment. They must leave the pathway in 3 days, by hook or by crook, or else!
The main force of the second phase would be Ye family this time. Both Xue Lai clan and Xi Feng tribe had fully consumed their military forces. They had to take a break from battle also because of how bristleworms were completely immune towards energy-based firings, like those beams. So, they started clearing up the course instead. The remnants of Crustalades were everywhere. A cleanup would be needed.
Ye Yin had only 852 war machines left and they had to clear a way out in the midst of those green waving madness at the very least.
It would be either dead or alive! They were ready!
The 852 units took a cone-shaped formation, with Ye Yin, the strongest pilot of the family leading at the tip of the cone.
Ye Yin's mech was once a rare sight even hidden from his own family, and now it had made its debut to every ally. The 12 Spikedrops were circulating around its body, the afterimages of the momentary travel had veiled the mech in faint darkness.
Ye Yin led the army and advanced forward.
"Wait, he came too?" Huang Jiming was shocked as he got up from his seat, staring at that petite silhouette gracefully hovering in the projection.
The pilot's hands fluttered over the control panel. Han Jia's wings spread and silently flew behind the battle units.
Huang Jiming had kept photon mode on the whole time, since he at first intended to observe how Ye Yin would look in action, never once he would expect Han Jia would be coming. Back on the staring contest in Risserd, this skeleton mech had impressed well enough. Sadly he never had the chance to have a duel with the pilot due to the sudden change of events.
Feng Su was right next to Huang Jiming, as her expressive eyes set upon that butterfly in the projection. Her lethargic face before had suddenly turned lively, as she reminisced those times she challenged this indifferent young man.
"DETECTION." Beeped the mechanical eyes of Brahmara, as prompted the projection of Han Jia.
"Ah! Brother Ye..."
Little Ye Chong knew that, the moment he hit the stage he had become the center of attention among these legends.
Ye Yin stared upon the misty world. Without hesitation, he had advanced forward, with the other mechs tailing after.
Inside the green mist, one could barely discern a thing. The detection system had become almost good-for-nothing thanks to the interferences caused by these mists. The scope of detection had been squeezed into a negligible range, and their vision had been limited.
With such limited vision, one could hardly perform any dodging in a traveling mech. But well, Ye Yin never planned to try dodging anything anyway. Thus, he maintained his velocity and drove along.
One bristleworm came out of nowhere and slammed upon Ye Yin's face.
The circulating Spikedrops suddenly charged themselves, drilling into the body of the worm. One could see the worm vibrating because of the intensiveness of the drilling which the immense pain had caused the worm to try curling itself at countless failed attempts.
And it exploded, becoming the bits of fleshes hovering in the space. The Spikedrops had shredded the bristleworm into countless pieces.
Ye Yin did not stop, as he kept up with his speed. These worms were vulnerable against his mech, not even their spikes could break the mech's armor.
The alarm had been wailing in the mech however, as the processor constantly prompting an alert illustrating the damage the mech received.
It must be those gases! The emission of bristleworms could break the mech of a top pilot in the galaxy, let alone those folks' mechs behind him. Ye Yin started suspecting the validity of Brahmara's calculation... wondering if they could even last for 3 complete days.
But they had no other choice. They only could charge on.
They would have a likelihood to survive as long as they left this nightmarish place as soon as possible.
He looked at the approaching sea of worms rumbling ahead. The battle will burned up high in his eyes, while his hands danced upon the interface. His mech then zoomed into the sea!
It is time! Time to fight, fight for your destiny!
Ye Chong stepped into the green mist. No doubt he turned blind like Ye Yin, he had far inferior detection system compared to Ye Yin's mech. Looking at the white buzzing screen, Ye Chong could not help but to switch to Photon detection mode.
The camera was flooded with an overflowing green, from which a bristleworm suddenly jumped at Han Jia. Ye Chong was slightly shocked as he tapped the control panel promptly and lifted two slashes with his daggers. A secreting cross was seen on the body of bristleworm. That was not the final blow. The body of that worm was about 40 to 50 meters, so the tiny cross would not kill, even though the worm was already wriggling in pain, emitting more green gases to the surrounding, during which its tail slammed upon Han Jia.
Ye Chong responded quickly as Han Jia covered up itself with its wings.
The strength of this slam was beyond his expectation as Han Jia was sent far away like a whipped badminton.
That thing was sure huge for a reason... Thought Ye Chong, he did not intend to waste more time on this random enemy. A wounded beast would be far more dangerous than a normal beast, according to his experiences dealing with these wild lifeforms.
Han Jia gracefully turned away from the wounded caterpillar and flew forward. And then it jerked, as Ye Chong realized a major issue without a functioning detection system - he had lost his direction.
Ye Chong was at an awkward situation, knowing that these bristleworms were forceful by nature since those strong spaceships could get stuck, completely immobilized within their embrace.
Han Jia was at least far more agile than the gigantic spacecrafts. It could easily swim through the sea of worms. It did not take long for Ye Chong to notice the hidden system behind the sea of worms. Apparently, the appearance of the worm determined a certain kind of rank in its own hierarchy. The greener the worm, the higher rank it would be... since only the dark green bristleworms could emit those gases. The paler ones were seemingly younger so they were unable to perform such defense mechanism.
The hierarchy was justifiable as Ye Chong saw the unnoticed grouping where a dark green bristleworm would always lead three to four paler ones at a spot.
Ye Chong piloted Han Jia carefully, dodging one bristleworm to another, realizing he had possibly ventured too deep into the sea of worms, as the surrounding grew denser. He also noticed that he was practically invisible too, assuming he did not open fire at these worms.
Hmm...
Wait, could it be these bristleworms have the same sensibility of metal as the Crustalades?
Ye Chong had something else in mind... but he could not put it together somehow... He tried harder, recollecting his thoughts as waving the handle over these pests, to the center of the sea.